Get Soft Hands in a Week

Your hands are one of the most active parts of your body. Your hands not only assist in the performance of daily tasks, but can play a role in communication with others. Keeping your hands in good health is as crucial as with any other part of your physiology. Keeping the surface of your hands soft, and improving their condition in as short a time as a week can be accomplished with a daily regimen.

Steps

Cleansing Your Hands Daily

1. Wash your hands carefully. You need to do this each day of the week regardless of the state of dryness of your hands. This will not only lead to softer skin, but better health overall thanks to the elimination of germs. But you need to wash gently.
   • Use warm water. Hot water damages the skins natural oils, especially near the surface.
   • If your hands are already very dry, try just scrubbing the palms.
   • Use moisturizing soaps or soap-less cleansers. Avoid soaps with fragrances.
2. Moisturize your hands after every wash. You should rub a moisturizing cream on your hands after washing them. This should become a part of your daily routine, though also done at any time your hands become dry and/or itchy.
   • Monitor what kind of moisturizers you are using. Avoid water based products, and look to oil-based moisturizers. Ointments and creams tend to be better for this while lotions are the most water-based.
   • These oil-based products will help soften your hands faster--within the week time period--as they will help trap-in moisture better than lotions and water-based products.
   • Expensive does not necessarily equate to good in this case.
   • Look for products like petroleum jelly (petrolatum), mineral oil, and lanolin. Moisturizers with glycerin, dimethicone, and hyaluronic acid also can help skin retain moisture. Products with lactic acid and urea also may work.
   • Petroleum jelly is one inexpensive moisturizer you can use. Cocoa butter and honey is a home-made moisturizer you can create.
3. Use overnight products to speed up the process. Petroleum jelly or any product that requires time to stay on your hands will also require you to have pairs of cotton gloves handy to wear in the meantime.
   • If you do this overnight, you can take advantage of the inactivity to eliminate inconvenience while the product does its work.
   • Overnight treatments will help soften your hands within the week, and should be maintained as a general treatment going forward.
4. Use an exfoliating cleanser. This is the act of removing dead skin from your body. You can scrub your hands using products or a number of home-based items. You should limit this to a couple of times during the week period, three at most. exfoliate
   • If you're looking for home based items, there are several that combine readily available items into solutions that will soften the skin of your hands. These include, but are not limited to: sea salt and olive oil; lemon and glycerin; baby oil and sugar; oats and lemon; milk, honey, and lemon juice; honey, curd, and tomato juice; turmeric and lemon.
   • Do this several times during the week, two or three times, but not necessarily during every hand-wash.
   • You can get this done during spa treatments as well.
   • Do not over-exfoliate. Exfoliating too often can damage the surface and/or blood vessels in the skin. Look for signs of dryness, patchiness, dehydration, and/or increased sensitvity--they may indicate you are exfoliating too often.
5. Repeat the above steps on a daily basis. It is important for the health of your hands' skin to maintain this routine beyond just a week. But doing this for several days will at least improve your hands' skin condition in the short-term.
   • If cost is an issue, consider the home-made version of both the moisturizer and exfoliate product.
   • Remember you do not need to exfoliate for every single hand-wash.
   • It is best to take advantage of bedtime to use long-term products, ones that need to stay on your hands for several hours, and wear cotton gloves over your hands while you sleep. Wear gloves over your hands while these long-term products are applied even if you are not asleep.

Protecting Your Hands

1. Protect your hands. This is crucial for not undoing the improvements you are undertaking with the moisturizing and exfoliating products, as well as not aggravating the damage that already exists.
   • Wear gloves (rubber, latex) when using products with irritants. This is a good idea for daily tasks such as dish-washing, house cleaning, and any physical labor.
   • Select gloves that have cotton linings inside to improve the gentleness on your hands.
   • Be particularly mindful of wearing gloves to protect your hands from exposure during the winter months when the air is typically drier.
2. Wear sunscreen when outside for long periods. Damage from exposure to the sun can aggravate your condition.
   • Avoid mixing the sunscreen with other products on your hands for the duration of your excursion.
   • Make sure the SPF (sun protection factor) number on the sunscreen you are using is adequate for conditions you are experiencing.
   • Use the cleaning methods, especially the soaps, above to thoroughly clean off the sunscreen after use before you switch back to your regular cleansing routine.
3. Consult with your dermatologist. Unless you already know you have a more severe condition, like eczema, you might ask to your dermatologist for recommendations on specific products you can use to accelerate your hands' skin improvement, healing, and protection.
   • Ask your dermatologist for suggestions on creams and ointments that you can use on a daily basis.
   • If you are using products at night, see if your dermatologist has any ideas about what else you might use, or change about your application technique if you are not seeing results.
   • Consider bringing any home-made products by your dermatologist for confirmation on their correctness.
4. Add humidity to your house. Find a few ways to add a little moisture to the air in your home without compromising other health factors. This is more important during the winter.
   • Use a humidifier. These machines will pump moisture directly from a water source into the air.
   • A bowl of water near your heaters will also draw moisture into the air.
5. Decrease the temperature of your baths/showers. Similar to the recommendation of not washing with hot water, you should avoid washing with hot water in other places to avoid it affecting your hands.
   • Find a "luke-warm" setting to adjust your bath/shower to instead.
   • Consider applying bathing oils to your hands before you enter the bath/shower, and then moisturizer afterwards.
6. Locate moisturizers at your wash locations. Placing your chosen moisturizing products and exfoliate products at your sinks will encourage their use.
   • If you wash up at multiple locations, try to have multiple bottles/pumps of soap, moisturizer, and exfoliate at each sink.
   • You can keep a large bottle of product at your primary wash location, and smaller bottles at others.

Choosing Unverified Home Remedies

1. Combine olive oil and sugar. This is probably among the easiest hand softening rubs to make as the ingredients are commonly found in most homes or easily purchased at local stores.
   • Mix 1 teaspoon of sugar with a few drops of olive oil. Use as many drops as it takes to form a mixture you can rub into your palm until the sugar blends with your skin.
2. Use olive oil and oatmeal. Because there are large varieties of oatmeal, you might have to experiment a bit to find the right combination, but the basic process is the same as with sugar.
   • Mix a couple teaspoons of oatmeal and few drops of olive oil. Rub the mixture on your palms until it blends in with your hand. Let the rub set on your hands for fifteen minutes before washing it off.
3. Try the butter and almond oil remedy. These should be two readily accessible ingredients for a hand-softening rub.
   • Combine two teaspoons of butter with one teaspoon of almond oil for the mixture to rub on your hands. Let the rub sit for 20 minutes before washing.
4. Consider the remedy of rose water, honey, and almond powder. These also should be relatively easy ingredients to gather at home or from a store to produce a rub to soften your hands within a week.
   • For this rub you will need to mix one teaspoon of honey, half a teaspoon of almond powder, and a few drops of rose water to form the product. However, it is essential that you make sure this rub is evenly distributed on your palms with several minutes of rubbing and then leave it on your hands for an additional ten minutes before washing it off.
5. Try some remedies like glycerin, rose water, and lemon. Glycerin can usually be bought at a pharmacy/drugstore.
   • For this rub, you should make a fresh batch every time you use it and not store it for later use.
   • Mix equal parts of the glycerin, rose water, and lemon (one teaspoon each) for this rub and leave it on long enough to dry.
6. Mix lemon and sugar. This is one of the simpler solutions you can try at home for softer hands in a week.
   • Take a half-slice of lemon, pour sugar onto the juicy part, and rub the juicy/sugar part onto your palms until the sugar has dissolved. Repeat for the other hand.
7. Mix honey and sugar. Among the more accessible solutions is this one, but you will need to keep the rub on for 20 minutes before washing.
   • To produce this rub, combine a tablespoon of honey with a tablespoon of sugar and then rub the result into your palms until the sugar component dissolves for each hand. Start the twenty minute wait at that point.
8. Consider the combination of tomato juice, glycerin and lime juice. This also has mostly accessible ingredients you can use for a hand-softening rub which can be completed within a week.
   • Extract the tomato juice, glycerin, and lime juice in equal proportions and combine them into a paste you apply to your hands every evening. You may want your gloves for this.
9. Consider using a baby powder/bath salt combination. These are readily available products and usually inexpensive, plus should contribute to your hands softening within the week time frame.
   • Dust the baby powder on your palms and then pour over natural bath salts. Add several drops of mild hand soap. Rinse your hands gently with warm water.
10. Combine almonds and sandalwood oil. These ingredients are available at supermarkets and help mostly with skin health, so may contribute to your hand's softness within the week time frame.
    • Grind ten fresh green almonds with several drops of sandalwood oil, and apply the mixture in a rub to your hands. Wash after it's been allowed to soak to a dry.
    • Usually these rubs should be applied twice a day during regular hand washing times.
11. Wash off each/any of the rubs you applied. Remember you should be using warm water, not hot.
    • Wash gently. You don't want to damage the skin you are trying to heal and soften.
    • Make sure you are washing after the time the remedy's instructions recommended you leave the rub on your hands.
    • Check your soaps to make sure they fragrant-free and don't contain any other harsh ingredients that may irritate your skin.
12. Resume moisturizing and glove wear after each/any of the home remedy rubs are applied and washed off. After you've used the home remedy rubs, you should use your chosen moisturizer to lock in the effect the rub has had. Wear your gloves to protect your hands from damage.
    • If you are doing this during the day, pick gloves more appropriate to your tasks than the nightly cotton-only gloves. But whatever gloves you do pick should still be cotton-lined inside.

Tips

• Follow the instructions on your products, don't over-apply.
• Some hand moisturizers have a SPF factor in them, a useful combination.

Warnings

• If your skin condition worsens, spreads, or you have any reaction to a product you are using, consult a medical professional immediately.
• Make sure you are not allergic to any products, including glove fabrics, you may be using.

Things You'll Need

• Moisturizer
• Source of running water
• Exfoliator
• Cotton gloves
• Home remedy ingredients
• Towels
• Mixing bowl
• Moisturizing soap or soap-less cleanser

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Sources and Citations

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